(See front cover)
Reasons like the following made Bertrand Lord Dawson of Penn's westward journey across Canada the past fortnight a respectfully observed, newsworthy processional :
He cured King George V of pneumonia's aftermath by having the royal side pierced and drained of accumulated pus, and by enjoining a strict convalescent regime (TIME, April 8, 1929, et ante).
He is the only one, not excepting the King & Queen, who has been able to manage the Prince of Wales in his obstreperous childhood or his willful manhood.
As a privy councillor he helps govern the British Empire.
He is the perfect British doctor.
He was one of the two English lords last week en route to the convention of the British Medical Association at Winnipeg. (Berkeley George Andrew Lord Moynihan of Leeds, surgeon, was the other.)
He talked charmingly and pointedly, until he was hoarse, while traveling across Canada.
His wife and youngest (third) daughter accompanied him on the journey.
Career. Lord Dawson is reputedly the only peer who has succeeded in keeping his age out of the register of the British peerage. This deliberate obscuring of his biography is the only flaw in this otherwise impeccable nobleman. However: he was born March 9, 1864, at Duppas Hill, Croydon, Surrey, England, to Henry Dawson, an architect of sufficient contemporary repute to be elected a fellow of the Royal Institute of Architects. His mother was one Frances Emily Wheeler. Somewhat more than 40 years ago the then Bertrand Dawson was a comparatively poor but comparatively elegant medical student in London. Among his acquaintances was a really poor bookkeeper in London, James Ramsay MacDonald. Recently the Rt. Hon. James Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister of Great Britain, told a story about both of them: "The first time I visited Buckingham Palace as a guest of the King, a distinguished looking man, whom I had been informed was Lord Dawson, came and shook my hand in a most familiar fashion, saying, 'Have you forgotten me?' Then he reminded me of a night when we had a frugal supper together in a Bloomsbury restaurant. . . . Our combined wealth was insufficient to save us from walking to Holloway station." With his permanent amazement at his own rise to eminence Mr. MacDonald commented: "Could any of you, with all your capacity to forecast, then have said to both of us, Gentlemen, you will bid each other good night tonight, and it will be your fate not to meet again until invited as guests of His Majesty to partake of his hospitality at Buckingham Palace?" Lord Dawson has never expressed such amazement at his own rise.
Luck, his pleasant appearance and his expertness in diseases of the stomach kept young Mr. Dawson from the bowler hat and satchel of the obscure English doctor. Minnie Ethel Yarrow, youngest daughter of Sir Alfred Fernandez Yarrow, the potent shipbuilder, was a chronic invalid. A doctor was always at her side. One day the regular man suddenly became ill. Dr. Dawson was handy, was summoned. He cured the girl. They fell in love, married (1890).
Miss Yarrow's recovery made Dawson patients of Yarrow friends. The circle grew. Dr. Dawson became fashionable, a "Harley Street" practitioner, although his commodious, beautifully furnished home and office is in nearby Wimpole Street.—